#AtoZChallenge Y is for Young

The Blogging from A to Z April Challenge is an annual challenge put out to bloggers to publish a post from A-Z every day in April, except for Sundays. April 1 is A, and so on throughout the month. The theme I have chosen for 2018 is The Story Of Me

Y is for the Young Me. I know I’ve talked about memories in previous posts, but they’ve mostly been about young childhood memories. Today I’ve been thinking of my memories of growing up as I went from primary school to being a teenager. And a painful teenager I was! I was not at all comfortable in my own skin, and didn’t enjoy my teenage years one bit.

I was much more comfortable when I was in late primary school, spending my weekends on my bike with the boys. There was an area near the river where we could jump our bikes over the hilly bits. In our childish way, we called this area the upsy downs. I loved this and was in my element here. We had never heard of BMX in those days. We just loved jumping our bikes and having fun.

We would ride our bike, or walk to school every day right up until the end of secondary school. And I mean every day. It didn’t matter if it was raining, off we would go, wearing a coat. I really don’t remember complaining about that. It was just what we did. It was very rare that we would be taken to school or picked up in the car.

My introduction to being a teenager is a very clear memory to me. For my 13th birthday, along with a couple of girlfriends, we went to the movies on a Saturday night. I’m fairly sure this was the first time I was allowed to go to the movies at night. Previous to this, we would go to the Saturday matinee. My birthday is at the end of January and it always seemed to be so so hot, which is why we chose to go to the movies. It was the only place in town with air conditioning. We certainly didn’t have it at home in those days. The movie we saw was South Pacific. I remember we sang those songs for days after.

When I left school and started to work, I was allowed to go to the local dances which were very tame, compared to a night out at a night club. But it was a few years later that night clubs came to Shepparton. There were also the Young Farmers Balls. As Shepparton is in a rural area, each locality would have it’s own ball. They were great nights and a new glamorous ball gown would be made for each ball. Of course, the girls all had their eyes on the very eligible and handsome young farmers who were there in large numbers. I suspect that was the attraction.

Please visit again to see my story unfold. 

Jennifer